Queens of Print

Book excerpt: For fifty years our most powerful popular culture influencers have been the high-powered editors of mass-market women’s magazines like The Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day, New Idea and the now defunct Dolly, Cleo and Cosmopolitan. It is difficult to overstate the influence that these women have had in shaping popular ideas and attitudes, feminism, and femininity in Australia via the pages of their magazines. In these interviews, they describe their lives and careers in a medium that is part of our publishing heritage. Queens of Print is a tribute to the most influential and iconic women in Australian women’s magazines. It is a snapshot of a rapidly changing industry where print is supposedly dead, and media have been disrupted. This book looks back, but also forward to consider what a magazine might be and what a magazine editor might do in future decades.